Isle Royale May Add 20-30 Wolves Due to Extinction Threat

posted Jan 7, 2017, 2:30 PM by chloe owens

12/16/16, by USA Today

Isle Royale may
add 20-30 wolves due to extinction threat

WASHINGTON — The National Park Service today put
forward a draft plan to release 20 to 30
new wolves on Michigan's Isle Royale over a three-year period as a way to
bolster a population on the remote Lake Superior island that has dwindled
to just two and is in danger of becoming extinct.

If the Park Service – which for more than a year has been
looking at the fading Isle Royale wolf population and a moose herd that has
swelled to 1,300 animals with its main predator in decline – follows through,
it could quickly revive a closed ecosystem on the rugged 45-mile-long island
protected from hunting and existing largely outside of human interference.